Welcome to another episode of Golden Nuggets Tips & Tales
powered by Property Finder. The leading property platform
and number one property app in the region driving more leads
and transactions than any other platform.
This is where SuperAgents and smart home seekers meet even
smarter tech because behind every great listing and every
hot lead is technology that works harder so you don't have
to. We're back with Ben Greenwood of
Arabian Estates, who is one of Property Finder's SuperAgents on
the platform. And we're gonna talk about some
of the tech tools he uses to stay sharp aware of his niche,
aware of his market, aware of what's going on and give you
some tips and maybe a few tales to uh stay ahead of the
competition. Now, Ben, how do you use Data
Guru? uh insights, to influence your
pricing, what you're saying to buyers and what you're saying to
sellers? I think for me, one of the best
parts about Data Guru is like the pricing map.
So a lot of people, they want value for money, right?
Let's say you have a budget of one and a half million.
And this is uh like a most recent case, actually, one of my
friends, one of my friend's friends bought a unit in JVC
with me. last month and we actually opened up this tool to
say, where can you get price per square foot value for money,
which are obviously for most people linked.
And we opened up the map and we just put in like budget, number
of bedrooms, and it came up with a couple of different areas.
One of them, of course, was a million miles away.
But then we sort of honed in and we realized that there were a
couple of areas that would suit what they were looking for.
So looked at a couple of units in those different areas.
And he went and closed one in JVC, but it was perfect because
it just came up and it showed you where this whole value for
money or price per square foot or the biggest apartment for the
least amount of money would come up.
So for me, that's probably one of the most exciting parts of
the tool. And how often do you obsess over
data? Are you checking constantly
what's going on in your... in your community, what's your...
Yeah, I think it's always good to know what has sold, bar the
stuff of course that you sell yourself.
So it's good to know what's sold.
It allows you to stay in real time with the market so that you
can educate buyers and sellers. So I think it's important.
Generally every Monday, I'll probably go into the office,
have a look at what's sold over the last week or so, what's
transferred. new listings, see what's coming online, where our
listings are priced in comparison with those that are
coming on. Are we well priced?
Are we overpriced? Can we go back to some owners
and give them an idea that, you know, your next door neighbors
come on for however much less. Do we see value in where we're
at? Or is it worth trying to compete
with your next door neighbor in terms of pricing?
Like how serious are you about getting this thing sold?
Yeah. Positioning is so important.
Positioning is huge. You've obviously got the premium
and the featured capabilities with Property Finder.
When we're talking about search criteria and people looking on
most recent, or often people go price low to high, click, click,
click. But it's great to go by the
featured ones because the businesses that are working with
Property Finder, they'll only really promote stuff that's
actually worth promoting and worth selling.
So if something is well priced or it's unique or whatever else,
and it's going to catch some, like some real attention and
genuinely sell, then they'll put some extra money behind it.
But if you're on the market with hundreds of agents and your
pricing is 10, 15 % above the market, don't be surprised to
see it sit on the portals for a little while. for a manager even
to approve to. promote something to a premium listing or a
featured, you're going to have to have some strong evidence to
back that. Yeah, definitely.
So for a home seeker, so anyone looking on, on a Property Finder
they should know that it's not that that's boosted to just get
eyeballs. It's boosted for a genuine
reason. Yeah.
That there is strong conviction that that this is a good listing
and that's why someone has approved for it to be a premium.
of course, if you were running the business, would you put
extra market in behind? something that's overpriced and
is never gonna sell, or you're put extra marketing behind
something which is really in line with the market, priced
incredibly sharply and ready to go, like which is gonna sell
first. Yeah, and that's important.
You made a very good point about uh making sure that you're
keeping an eye on what's coming on around your listing.
So it's not just about the price that you go on the market for,
you've got to keep it positioned correctly. in that market for as
long as it's online? Absolutely. think a lot of
owners have been, ah they've benefited, I guess you can say,
from the upward trend in the market.
So let's say their pricing was high to begin with, but the
market's caught up over the sort of one, two months that it's
been kind of stagnant online. There's been a couple of sales
that have come through, a couple of transfers that have gone
through, and now the market's kind of caught up to where.
where you want to be. So the price increase in the
market itself has allowed for some owners to get a little bit
more than perhaps what they were originally hoping.
And you mentioned it's important to educate buyers, it's to
educate sellers. It's also important to educate
real estate agents or stay educated or stay informed.
So how do you, as a super agent, stay informed, stay
knowledgeable, stay educated? stay educated, motivated.
I think a lot of this boils down to stuff that you don't
necessarily do in the office. There are things that you can do
outside of the office that, that will keep you motivated.
Of course, like finding out the reason why you're doing this.
If we're doing this just for the sake of, of being a broker, then
at some point you're probably going to come unstuck.
But if you have a why, If you have a A compelling reason.
Compelling reason, yeah, for sure.
And then outside of that, of course, I am in therapy at the
moment. Which is rare.
Rare. It's a very American thing.
Yeah. ah And originally I was, ah I guess you could say quite
negative about the concepts, about the idea, but... the more
I've done it and the more I've sort of like worked around
whatever's going on, it's not, you can call it therapy, but you
can also call it like performance enhancement, mental.
Or like it's so many different ways, right?
That have a much more positive, uh positive spin on it.
You know, we're there or I'm there to become a better
husband, better father, better broker, just an all round better
version of myself. I think the growth that I've
seen just in the short space of time that I've been doing it has
been in itself quite overwhelming. um But it's a
really exciting prospect, I think, because it's the first
time I've ever truly invested in myself to become better.
Everything I've ever learned has come from external sources.
Never paid for education. I've never had any education
paid for, but this is like an education. yourself.
Yeah, you're going to the university of yourself and it's,
um, it's a scary place to go to for sure, but it's so freeing.
was it the real estate industry that led you to therapy?
Um, no, no, not really. I mean, listen, I, I have a lot
of people that, that are dependent on me doing well.
Um, So in itself, like that's, that's obviously a lot of
pressure. Um, but my time in the market
has been great. I've been very fortunate with
the people I've met, the places I've, I've worked and wherever
else, like all of it. I can't speak badly about, about
that. It's, it's all been fine.
Uh, but sometimes things just get on top and you know, the
whole feeling to me was really new because everything, like
when you come into the marketplace, it all, except for
the first year, like where it was difficult, of course, but
the rest of it kind of just clicked and it all went pretty
well, pretty smooth and it just ran its course.
I guess this was the first time that I ever had a feeling of, I
don't even know what it is, like of being on top.
So yeah, I mean, it was an odd place to be, but if I can advise
anyone for sure, if they're... If they're struggling in any
sort of capacity, then speaking to someone who has no idea who
you are, no judgment, it's the most freeing thing that I've
ever done. I'll give you a free
alternative. Chat GPT.
I swear to God, everyone's using that for therapy these days.
I mean, by all means can do that.
Myself, I prefer interpersonal and kind of like instant. human
feedback, but I can totally understand.
Yeah. A free alternative, uh, that
probably still has zero judgment, yeah, I can understand
how, how that can work. And I guess whether it's the
gym, whether it's music, whether it's walking down kite beach,
chat, GPT, real time, face to face kind of stuff. whatever
works for you and can keep you going through the times that are
a little bit more challenging than, yeah, just find your thing
and go with it. So what's the one biggest
mindset tip you can give for all the real estate agents out
there? Cause we keep hearing this word
right now, mindset, positive mindset.
And again, it's important as a ex-military guy, now five years
in the industry Top tip I guess would probably be, if you're
almost robotic, right, then the highs wouldn't be highs and the
low would never be lows. It would just be a constant.
I think that's what most people who are incredibly high
performance try and strive to achieve, to have no emotional
ups and downs or peaks and troughs.
So- That's just boring. It's boring, right?
And it's nice to ride the roller coaster, but I think what's
important is, Enjoy the highs, of course, while they're there,
but still never lose sight of what has got you there.
So let's say you close a really big deal and you have a great
commission coming in, like congratulations to you, well
done, but what's next? It's important to maintain this
level that has got you to where you've got to.
And then when the times are tough, of course, do whatever
you can to make sure that the troughs and the lows are not so
low. And I think it's important to
manage expectations as well. So there's that old saying that
happiness is the gap between your reality and your
expectations. So the wider that gap is, the
unhappier you'll be. So keep your expectations
relatively close to your reality.
Especially in this industry, it's important to recognize it
does not end. The amount of money you can make
does not end. So your expectations, you've
done that big deal. Now you're thinking, okay,
what's the next big deal? Let's say you went out and
bought a G-Wagon. Okay, what can I buy next?
It's never gonna be enough don't drive yourself into the ground
trying to find happiness in material things or targets or.
It just doesn't stop. Yeah, I don't think it works.
That's not how the world works, right?
I watched that video of Will Smith.
I don't know if you saw it where he's talking about rock bottom,
but no one talks about what he calls a cliff top.
Like you can drive yourself to ascertain all of these things.
But what happens when you finally get here?
This place is just as dangerous, by the way, as this place.
because up here, it's a long way down.
Yeah. I think people assume there's
happiness at the top. It's not always. absolutely not.
You can find some of the most unhappy people ever who are in
these positions, just as unhappy, but just because they
have some money, like apparently that makes it all better.
I can tell you from experience, sometimes it doesn't.
It makes it more comfortable maybe.
Yeah, perhaps. Yeah.
You're just going crazy in a bedroom as opposed to on the
streets, but there's no, you know.
You just have to find your comfortability and be happy and
appreciate what you have. Like if I could have told you
three years ago, you'd be here now, would you have like snapped
my arm off? You probably would.
So let's just take a moment to stop and appreciate all the
things that you've done. know, I've got three kids, man.
Mindfulness. It's amazing.
Don't think I've ever done an episode about mindfulness and
done maybe a little bit of mindset. conversations, but
thank you for that refreshing, slightly sensitive topic.
And thank you for being so open about your own therapy journey
and for encouraging everybody else to seek their true
happiness. And it's not always money and
commission. I hope you enjoyed that episode.
Catch the rest of Ben's episodes while you're at it.
Why not binge the whole season?